LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3106, 9 June 1917, Page 8

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

SIX O'CLOCK CLOSING

Sir,—There is hardly (I doubt if thereis one) a- well-read and experienced man in Ihe world who does not support -»ix o'clock closing of hotel bars, Unit i\ if ho is disinterested and conscientious. When a. person cannot mako a living without keeping his business going after 6 p.m. as well as all day there is tomething wrong with the business. The man running it should give it up; it should he taken over by tho Official Assignee, or discontinued altogether. There is no well-read an.l educated hotelkeeper who docs not believe at heart and patriotically in six o'clock closing. His pocket and anxiety tor quick, largo profits do sup|Kirt Into closing (and tho later the better, his pocket says), as tho later hotel bars are kept open the quicker do men spend, the gayer and more reckless they become. Thins, whore drunkenness is worst bars can be found open all night. All (1. do not qualify tho all) educated opinion throughout, tho world is in favour of and fervently desires six o'clock closing. America is said to bo "the land of (he dollar." Americans are patriotic, and intensely loyal. Anyone who reads educated American opinion in "Harper's Magazino," "Tho Atlantic Monthly," "Scribncr's Magazine," or any other American magazine for the thoughtful classes sees every now and then expert articles showing tho awful and life-shortening effects of the consumption of alcoholic liquor. American business men have found that drinking does not pay—it causes inefficiency, and finally incapacity.

7\lost of the largest employers of labour in America insist on every one of their employees being total abstainers. Many of these men have thousands working for them. In some oth»r American business houses all the total abstainers are paid 10 per cent, higher wages than, employees of a similar class who are not abstainers. The employers find that tho abstainers do more work, and better work, than the drinkers. Tho employers view drink simply from the business standpoint—it doesn't pay. New York is the home of three of the greatest life insurance companies in the world. The chief medical advisers of these offices maintain that if a man drinks only ono whisky daily (less than the moderate drinker, who is so muck talked about iii Now Zealand) it shortens any lifo by several years. Life insurance offices aro very practical; they want policy-holders to live the full span. Early deaths mean actual loss to tho surviving policy-holders. Tha bonuses, of which we hear so muck in the colonics, suffer, and the office'loses favour with tho public. No lifo insurance office in the world accepts tho average, hotelkeeper on tho same terms as tho average man. He is heavily loaded, an annual recurring loading, more than is charged to soldiers on active service, Tho reason is that the average hotelkeeper dies twenty years sooner than the average man. Many life offices will not insure hotelkeepers at all, although they will insure- anyone else except aviators and men engaged in submarines. These same offices will insure soldiers. One colonial office has separate sections for abstainers and average men. Every year for years past the abstainers have received much the larger bonuses. 'For last year the abstainers' section showed 41.2 per cent, lower, or better, mortality returns than, tho general section, this despite the fact that a largo proportion of their policy-holders who enlisted were abstainers.

We want to win the war. Which shall it be, win tho war as soon as it can possibly bu won, or win it after an. unduly protracted struggle costing millions more in men and money, and continually reducing the number of fit men who can be scut away to fight? After every "final leave" the camp hospitals have a number of cases of men who generally overstay their leave, and when they ■ return are admitted to hospital, and stay there for periods varying from a few days to several weeks. Theso men in moot cases are physically fit men, but their hospital period stops them leaving with their Reinforcements. In most, if not all, such cases it is found that these men, when on leave, not merely drink all day, but the greater part of the night. Clearly, the less opportunity they have for drinking the shorter time they have for buying liquor, the less they can drink. If six o'clock closing will savo only a hundred men in New Zealand from becoming drunkards is it not many limes worth while? We all know it will save thousands of men from becoming drunkards. What awful hypocrisy is talked by some mercenaries, who assert that the greatest of living protagonists of British freedom, David Lloyd George, has changed his views on tlie'subjeet of liquor. These people will say next that ho is increasing the number and hours of public-houses. Wo know well he is steadily reducing both, and reducing the strength of tho liquor that is sold in what houses remain. We know, howver, that as he cannot at once close all liquor houses and in one act stop drinking, that lie recognises that by following the practicable method of 'doing it by stages he will attain the same end. 1 know several people who personally know Mr. Lloyd George. I am willing to accept his statements mado to my friends.

New Zealand has now an opportunity such as may not soon occur again. For some years New Zealand has been badly in need of leaders, partly duo to our prosperity. The war is waking our nation up, ami good men are coming out to help win the war by promoting efficiency. Few items of nows have pleased me so much as reading in to-day's paper that that cultured and travelled roan, Dr. A. K. Newman, is speaking to-night for six o'clock closing. With him lam equally pleased to see the name of one of New Zealand's most successful and learned barristers, Mr. C. B. Moijison, K.C., whose name is already well known in England, and regarded with favour by the most intellectual peoplo there. May their efforts and llto efforts of all the real patriots of New Zealand have the result they desire and deserve.—l am, etc., VINDEX. June 7, 1017.